The end of literacy and the triumph of TikTok

“In 2007, 80 percent of the families in the United States did not buy or read a book. There are 7 million illiterate Americans. Another 27 million are unable to read well enough to complete a job application, and 30 million can’t read a simple sentence. Illiteracy is epidemic. ”

– Empire of Illusion Chris Hedges

We have measured our lives by those we admire on the screen or fantasize to be like them. We imagine that fame, popularity and ghostly followers are our key to be praised and belonged. But we do not care about permanent values or permanent identities.

Instead, we engulf ourselves into the mass culture, we are shape shifters asking to be fooled. The American society we once lived in is abandoned by the smog of illusion. Its fairy-tale land as the scene of pinocchio’s pleasure island of tricked little children who traded in their books for stupidity and ignorance.

The spectacle is contributed to the fear of never being known, never being visible. We fear anonymity. The new culture of our society suffers from mental health issues from well-known platforms like TikTok, Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat. As we continue to fume in these non-literacy entertainments our souls in the process die. Our response to empathy is overridden by the jerkness social media makes us to become. Without philosophy, arts, intelligence and character we are subject as puppet masters as they hold our strings while we lose ourselves to moral bankruptcy.